Bitcoin (BTC) and gold show very different profiles in 2026. Gold is up 153% since the start of 2024, while Bitcoin is down nearly 30% over the same period.
One analyst said the difference is due to a steady increase in the world’s money supply, a cooling appetite for risky tech stocks and a shrinking balance sheet of crypto exchanges. Together, these changes shape how both assets trade in the market.
Increased liquidity and tech stock speculation can’t fuel Bitcoin
In an X post, Fidelity’s director of global macro, Jurrien Timmer, said gold behaved in a bull market, with sharp declines attracting short-term buyers. Timmer described gold as a pure “hard money” asset that closely tracks the growth of the world’s money supply.
Bitcoin tracks the growth of the world’s money supply over time, as shown by the steady growth of global M2 (the orange line). When M2 expands, BTC usually goes higher. However, the chart shows that Bitcoin’s strongest rally occurred when increased liquidity coincided with rising software and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) stocks, each of which are proxies for speculative appetite.
In 2017–2018 and again in 2020–2021, software stocks gained about 58% and 93% year-over-year, and the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed during these periods. In 2022, software stocks fell by about 58%, and Bitcoin experienced a deep decline, even when the money supply was high.
The data shows that an increase in the money supply supports the long-term trend, while changes in the assumptions of the technology sector tend to increase or decrease the volatility of the price of Bitcoin. This shows that Bitcoin has a strong currency effect and high beta characteristics, which reinforces the movement in both directions.
Timmer noted that liquidity is abundant, while speculative sentiment is in a bearish phase. In this scenario, gold and the money supply rallied together, while Bitcoin struggled to keep pace.
Related: Bitcoin threatens new breakout as US PPI sends gold to 1-month high
Gold drives demand for crypto exchanges
Demand for crypto-native platforms has also shifted towards gold-linked products. On January 5, Binance launched 24-hour, 7-day gold futures trading. The total volume of this product is approaching 35 billion dollars, which is more than 4 billion dollars on the most active day. According to crypto analyst Darkfost, the average weekly volume is around $4.7 billion.
Activity picked up immediately after gold posted a two-day correction of more than 20%. The spike highlights demand for tokenized exposure to traditional hard assets in the crypto space.
At the same time, CryptoQuant data shows that the total value of Binance’s portfolio in BTC, ETH, XRP and stablecoins ERC20 and TRC20 has decreased to about $102 billion. This is the lowest reading since April 2025, down from around $140 billion in August 2025.
The $38 billion decline reflects lower asset values and the withdrawal of users to self-sustainability amid declining volatility.
For Bitcoin, this indicates a decrease in capital on exchanges, which may indicate cautious trader positioning and thin liquidity in the short term.
Related: Bitcoin to $30K? Analysts debate when and at what price BTC will go down
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